Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro review: $130 ANC buds”.
Just when you thought there quite possibly could not be another wireless earbud for me to review. Well the joke’s on you, but it is increasingly hard to stand out in the wireless earbud market from bose to apple skull. Candy to one more. A pair of earbuds exists at just about every price point now, with many different features, sprinkled throughout being within a particular ecosystem, such as airpods for ios users or galaxy buds. Pro for samsung users is an easy way to attract buyers, but in anker’s case it’s having a very desirable feature at a very competitive price.
These are the soundcore liberty, air 2 pros and for 130 dollars. They do a lot of things well, but it’s their active noise cancellation and their really well designed app. That makes them worth talking about the liberty. Air 2 pros come in a large stone-like case that slides to open. It is incredibly fun to fidget with it most closely resembles the case of the galaxy buds pro longer than it is tall, but it certainly is not as pocketable as most anc buds cases. There are three battery indicator lights on the front and a button for pairing around back, which sounds like a super small detail, but having a physical button for pairing is far easier to use than the tap to pair method.
That buds like the job, early 85 tees use, so thank you anchor. The battery life is on par with other anc. Headphones anchor claims, seven hours of battery life with anc, turned off or six hours with it turned on, and there are three additional charges in the case that charges both wirelessly or via usb-c port. Around back.
This was more than enough juice. To get me to the point of needing to take the buds out of my ears to take a break from the tight and ear sealed these buzz have and a 15 minute quick charge in the case when the case is plugged in via usbc will get you Back three hours of additional listening time now the buds themselves are the same, wonderful iconic stem design. We have come to expect in wireless earbuds. They have a gold fan like cover over their speakers.
That is actually super cool and a textured matte finish. Either bud can be used independently of the other, and the in-ear detection can be toggled on and off in the earbuds app. Now i found the in-ear detection to be like very sensitive and almost too sensitive for my liking. So i wear a hood often because i have a i don’t – have a lot of hair in my head and i get very cold anyway, when i had a hood over my head and it would knock the earbuds even just a little bit. The earbud would detect that it was out of my ear and stop my music. Now, a quick adjustment of the bud would get my music playing again, but it was all just kind of annoying all right. If you know me, you know, i’m all about the tap controls, and i got ta say the tap controls on these buds is hella limited right out of the box double tap on the left to skip to the next track, double tap on the right for play And pause or hold down for two seconds on either bud to toggle ambient sound modes, although the buds are responsive to these taps, that is a very limited amount of controls at your fingertips and yes, all of these controls can be customized within the app, but i Just found myself wanting a single tap or even a triple tap option. The liberty air 2 pros come with nine different size, silicone ear tips in the box, ranging from extra extra extra small to extra large.
This is to create the best seal and hopefully, keep movement from happening. Fit is extremely important in wireless earbuds. I mean not only to make sure that you have the best seal for anc, but also to improve sound quality, especially in the lower frequencies, to confirm you have chosen the best size tips. Anker has created the tip fit test within the soundcore app the app first measures, the db levels of the space you’re in to ensure it’s quiet enough for this test.
The app then plays about 10 seconds of ringtone-esque orchestral music, and then it displays a good seal or a bad seal result for each earbud. There’S. Also, an audio test called here id that claims to map your personal hearing, sensitivity at multiple frequencies to best tailor the eq settings to you anyway. It plays about 30 tones per ear and it asks you to answer. Yes, i can hear that tone or no.
I cannot honestly, it feels a lot like going to the ear doctor minus like that whole bit when they stick that that weird, like pointy thing in your ear anyway. Next, you are presented with a graph of your results and an eq preset saved to the app my test resulted in deeper bass and less trouble which did make my music sound, fuller. Both the fit test and the eq settings test are not something revolutionary. A lot of buds have these tests these days.
Some people might find them more useful than others, but i think it’s good to have the option also. It creates this illusion that your buds are like really being tailored to you, which kind of makes me feel a little special. I’Ve made you wait long enough. Let’S talk audio quality, the liberty, air 2 pro support spc and aac audio codecs. They have 11 millimeter drivers that create a more trouble heavy sound, while music felt full and immersive with crisp separation. I did find myself wanting more bass.
Upping the lows in the app certainly helped, but it wasn’t as clean sounding as the bass in the airpod pros. Like 70s, funk sounded really good, but more contemporary rnb, like doja cat, felt a bit flat, but i was most excited to test the a and c in these buds. There are three main ambient sound modes: full noise cancellation, transparency mode and then normal, which turns off the anc and the transparency mode within the full anc and transparency modes. There are even more specific controls for controlling the level of pass-through. Sound. The anc mode features a transport mode for cancelling low end frequencies, such as train rumbles, an indoor mode for mid-range frequencies and an outdoor mode that anker claims is best for city spaces. Then there’s also a custom mode for dialing in the best setting for you. I set my anc to transport mode and i left it there for most of my time with these buds it absolutely took out the lower frequencies and it was very easy to slip into oblivion. I found it most like the noise cancellation on the job early 85.
T’S on the train, the low rumbles disappeared, but it still let through just a bit more sound than the aeropod pros or the galaxy buds pro, and although the transparency mode is realistic, it doesn’t have the same earbudless feel of the airpod pros either. It certainly still feels like there is something blocking my ear canals from the outside world. There is, however, a vocal transparency mode that takes out low frequencies, while allowing higher frequencies such as voices through. It was helpful in listening to train announcements, but ultimately taking the earbud out to hear an announcement was far easier. Okay, so i’ve spent a lot of this review talking about the liberty air 2 pros app without like really talking about how beautiful it is, and this is kind of rare for earbuds, like usually when i get a pair of buds, i download their app. I dial in some eq settings, maybe change a couple of touch controls and then i never really open that app again, but with the soundcore app.
I found myself like going back to it like if i was bored on a train, i’d open it up and i would just play with all the settings i had. If someone was like talking across the car i would be like. Oh, can i still hear them under this transparency mode or with this anc levels on it’s just like really fun, and i think that’s because it’s so well designed it’s so easy to use and like the colors are beautiful. I don’t know it was a really weird experience for me to actually love an earbuds app in a wireless earbud market full of worthy and not so worthy competition.
It is increasingly hard to be impressed by a new bud, but the soundcore liberty, air, 2 pro’s competitive 130 price tag. It brought me in and then their true active noise cancellation and well-designed app kept me coming back for more. They certainly could use more bass and they could absolutely use a smaller case, but anker has done a great job at bridging the gap between a budget friendly option and a really reliable earbud that you’re going to be excited to put in your ears every day. Let’S talk audio quality, that’s like my favorite part in these videos, always because then you get to bring in like the six like yeah, so good .